Media streaming is becoming an increasingly popular way of delivering television, movies and other media content to viewers. Media streams are typically point-to-point transmissions of digitized content that can be sent over the Internet or a similar network. Media streaming is often used to facilitate video on demand (VOD) services, local storage and/or remote storage digital video recorder (LSDVR and/or RSDVR) services, Internet Protocol television (IPTV) services, placeshifted media viewing and/or any number of other convenient services. Generally, the media stream is played back for the viewer in real time as the stream continues to be delivered to the player.
Often, media content is encoded into multiple sets of “streamlets” or other smaller segment files that can be individually requested and adaptively delivered to client devices. As changes in network bandwidth or other factors occur, the client device is able to react to the changes by requesting future segments that are encoded with different parameters (e.g., a higher or lower bit rate) for increased or decreased quality, as desired. Adaptive media streaming typically relies upon the media player client to control much of the streaming process. That is, the media player client, rather than the server, typically determines the next segment of the stream that will be requested and delivered to the player. Several examples of adaptive streaming systems, devices and techniques are described in US Patent Publication No. 2008/0195743, which is incorporated herein by reference as one example of an adaptive media streaming system.
Many devices now communicate with the network via IEEE 802.14 (“Wi-Fi”) or similar wireless networks. While such networks continue to evolve with faster data throughput and improved signal modulation, data communication over a Wi-Fi or similar network is still dependent upon underlying protocols such as the transmission control protocol (TCP) or the like. Legacy protocols such as TCP often assume that packet loss and other network problems are caused by overloaded routers or gateways, thereby necessitating reduced packet transmissions to avoid congestion. The assumption that network problems emanate from congestion, however, may not be accurate for wireless networks. Although congestion can also occur on wireless networks, data transmission problems can also occur due to signal attenuation, interference and other issues associated with radio frequency (RF) transmissions.
It is therefore desirable to create systems, devices and processes that allow more efficient and effective delivery of video content or other data to clients residing on Wi-Fi or similar wireless networks. These and other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background section.